


Black Bun, White Paper

by TinTurtle



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Community: discoveredinalj, Fic, Gen, Hogmanay, Holiday, Memory, New Year, POV George Cowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28447380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinTurtle/pseuds/TinTurtle
Summary: George Cowley's past and present meet on New Year's Eve.
Kudos: 9





	Black Bun, White Paper

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to [Dawnwind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind) for betareading this fic.
> 
> Written for Discovered in a LiveJournal's 2020 midwinter challenge, [Discoverd in a a Box of Baubles](https://discoveredinalj.livejournal.com/405964.html).

We are working late tonight, my top agents and I. I know they are disappointed that they'll not be kissing their current young ladies at midnight. I would have spared them that pleasure if I could, though I doubt they'd believe it at the moment. It couldn't be helped, however. This case had to be wrapped up, whatever prior commitments there might be.

My office is in silence, but for the hazy noise of traffic, when I hear the bell towers of this city begin to toll twelve.

The file before me fades away, and I am back in Beith, in my grandmother's house. I've been allowed to sit up for the festivities—a great treat—though in the event, I am having trouble staying awake, especially after the train journey earlier in the day. My father, anxious to prove his credentials as a newly minted city-dweller and a little the worse for drink, is growling about old-fashioned superstition as my mother hushes him. My grandmother smiles knowingly at us all, whilst making sure we have no want of biscuits.

Meanwhile, my Uncle Thomas, tall and dark-haired, as is considered auspicious, has stepped out into the garden, awaiting the stroke of midnight. When it sounds, I feel a thrill down my back, first at the tolling of the church bell, then at the sound of his knock. The door is opened and he enters, his the first foot to cross the threshold in the new year, bringing luck to the house with both his presence and the symbolic gifts he carries: salt, coal, whiskey, and black bun. The last was my favorite then, though I would prefer the whiskey now.

The final echoes of London's bells have long given way to the popping of fireworks before my mind returns to my stack of files. I scold myself for woolgathering, but glance toward the cabinet where I keep my pure malt scotch. Perhaps a dram in honor of the past and its inhabitants. I rise stiffly, but before I can move far there is a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The door opens, and there is a tall, dark-haired man. He steps across the threshold, saying, “Well, we've finished, sir. Wish it had been a bit sooner; at least I could have snogged 4.5 at midnight. Here're the reports.”

He holds them out. Well, here is a first-foot to bring luck, but what does the gift of reports mean for the coming year?

**Author's Note:**

> "Reportents," if you will.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Most of this fic is based on Internet research, from several sources, about [Hogmanay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogmanay) traditions in Scotland.
> 
> Beith is a small town near Glasgow that I picked for Cowley's grandmother to live in. Since I'd chosen a real place, I tried to establish whether any of its churches actually had a bell that would have been rung on New Year's Eve circa 1931, but I didn't succeed. Poetic license there.


End file.
